Two Stony Brook Computer Science Teams Finish in Top 10 at the ACM ICPC Greater New York Regional Programming Contest

Stony Brook, NY - November, 2013

Stony Brook teams finished 6th and 8th among the 50 combatants at the ACM ICPC Greater New York Regional Programming Contest held at Yale University on October 27th, 2013. Our two best teams were so closely matched that after two hours into the contest, they were only separated by one minute after solving the first five problems.

The contest problems proved to be unexpectedly simple, shear coding speed triumphed over the more challenging algorithmically-oriented problems that are traditionally Stony Brook's bread and butter. Still, Stony Brook was the very first team on the board, solving problem B only five minutes into the contest.

NYU won the region, finishing its first eight problems in under two hours, completing its ninth just two minutes before Stony Brook's team 1. A total of six teams solved all nine problems, including Stony Brook's team 1.

Stony Brook’s Computer Science students accumulated bragging rights for the State University of New York (SUNY) system and other Long Island institutions. All of the Stony Brook teams finished in the top half of the field.

Coach Yanqing Chen helped prepare all of the Stony Brook teams for the event, and managed on-site operations at Yale, with great appreciation from faculty advisor Steven Skiena. Chen recently had his own major programming contest triumph, finishing first in the Fifth Dyalog APL Programming contest. The top Stony Brook 1 student team of Xiang Yu, Thao Do, and Vincent Tsuei finished in sixth place, solving all nine problems.

About Computer Science Department at Stony Brook University
The Department of Computer Science at SBU, the flagship institution in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, is ranked among the top 20 computer science departments in the nation by the National Research Council. Interdisciplinary collaboration and research recognition elevated the Department to be the largest and strongest unit in SBU's College of Engineering and Applied Science and the largest graduate program at SBU. The Department boasts internationally renowned faculty who have made significant contributions in visual computing, networking, computer systems, cybersecurity, algorithms, verification, and intelligent computing.